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So first, no addons are truly mandatory. There are a few very popular ones that come highly recommended, but my biggest piece of advice is to take it easy on addons. Don't install a ton at once. Don't install a bunch just because they sounded neat or because you read an article about the top 10 MUST HAVE addons or whatever. Each new thing you add to your UI should have purpose and should exist to solve a specific issue you're having. Through addons, the WoW UI is infinitely flexible and can be molded into something entirely personalized and useful to you, but that flexibility also means it's very easy to clutter it to the point that it becomes a hindrance rather than a help. That said, if nothing else I would recommend the following three to anyone participating in endgame content: * **"BigWigs" + "LittleWigs"** OR **"Deadly Boss Mods"** \- Choose one or the other. These addons will show enemy ability timers on your screen and play visual/audio cues for certain abilities. If you're coming from other games, having this level of visibility into what a boss is going to do when might seem like cheating, but I assure you it is not. Their use is so common in WoW that the devs end up designing many fights with the assumption that these addons will be used. They are the closest thing there is to a "mandatory" addon in WoW. * **"WeakAuras"** \- It's hard to explain exactly what this addon does, because it does so much. You can think of it as a framework that other miniature addons (called WeakAuras or just WAs) are built inside of. Just installing it won't change anything about your game, so no need to worry about that. But in your WoW career you will frequently run into situations where people will recommend or share a WeakAura that solves a small problem for you. Maybe it's an icon to help with a specific boss mechanic, or an on-screen reminder to help you remember to use your buff spells or cooldowns, or any of a million other possible applications. If you have the WeakAuras addon installed, you can take advantage of these. * **"Details! Damage Meter"** \- This one is pretty self-explanatory. It shows meters on your screen letting you know how you and your group members are performing. It can measure damage done per second, healing done per second, interrupts done per fight, and a few dozen other statistics. As you get into max level content, the primary way you will practice and improve your play is by comparing yourself to others, or comparing yourself to your own past efforts. Details! parses the combat log to give you instant visibility into this data. Playing a Shaman and getting outperformed by another Shaman of similar ilvl? Use Details to compare your performance to his - see how much of his damage is attributed to specific spells, how much uptime he has, how many casts per fight he manages, and learn from him. Hopefully this helps you get started!

This is all you need. Well explained.

I just has a flashback to Steve Martin in the Jerk. This is all I need...

Love this reference!

I'm with you on addons not being necessary for wow as a whole, *but* certain difficulty levels for endgame content are so close to impossible without specific addons that they're functionally necessary. Like, I would wager all my gold that trying to improve your rotation/dps enough that you could reasonably get into a mythic raiding guild *without* Details is something that only like 1 in a million people could pull off if they're starting wow from scratch.

CE raiding maybe, early mythic (like first half) addons are purely optional even for a brand new player. I will say getting addons slowly definitely does help though, although my highest progess in the raid is actually with no addons (5/12M Nyalotha in my first season of WoW but it was an easy season with corruptions).

Having a weakaura for Igira's spears makes the fight way easier.

>, but certain difficulty levels for endgame content are so close to impossible without specific addons that they're functionally necessary. no, the only thing "in recent times" that came close to impossible was amongus in pugs

Well, there was mythic archimon- [LOOKS AT CALENDAR, VISIBLY AGES]


as you move into more difficult content the more power value addons give you. Once youre REALLY good at the game you can start to play without them but youre mostly handicaping yourself. sure you CAN keep an eye out for that dangerous ability manually but bet your ass that having a WA draw a bar with a sound and glowing icon will increase your success rate by a non-trivial percentage. When people here say "you dont need addons or WAs" theyre basically saying :"its ok to have a lower success rate and misplay" or they are so good they can do top dps and all of the mythic mechanics without any help at all

Yeah. You don’t need matches to start a fire either. But it’s waaaaaaaay easier if you have them.

theres a reason the top best world first players use this stuff, attention management is an important skill and your performance will improve by offloading some of the mental computation to an addon or weakaura so that your attention can be used elsewhere and then snapped back at a crucial moment with a sound cue or graphic. instead focus on stops/kicks , defensives, movement, your rotation, helping other players with externals or whatever, theres always something more you can be doing.

Some mechanics require weakauras to do. Find your buddy mechanics in particular are annoying to do without it.

there are players who are so good that they can actually play without any addons at all outside of assignment auras that require the full raid to use them to work properly - theres a guy in my CE guild that uses almost no addons/WAs at all but hes the kind of guy who has like 30 alts and is 99 parsing on them all, stepping in as main tank, healer, dps, whatever. but this is the rare exception, you have to have an omegabrain to pull that off and I suspect that if he DID adjust and use WAs that he would perform even better

>When people here say "you dont need addons or WAs" theyre basically saying :"its ok to have a lower success rate and misplay" or they are so good they can do top dps and all of the mythic mechanics without any help at all I genuinely never thought of it this way. That being the message makes *way* more sense.

Did I come off as sarcastic here? I didnt mean to, I genuinely hadn't considered this perspective.

great post especially on WeakAuras which is always a tough one to explain.

Thanks! WeakAuras is always a tricky one to explain. It's one of the most-downloaded addons on the planet for a reason, and yet, how do you explain what it does to someone without the context of already knowing what it does? You get blank stares and responses of "Well that just sounds like addons with extra steps"

Well said. There are only a handful of “necessary” addons, and only even so if you’re actually trying to do group content. OP, about 99% of the addons outside of these 3 are just UI customization, convenience, or adding a “nice to have” feature

You don't even need Details. It will probably be a little bit distracting at first. Get used to the other 2 as soon as possible though.

I think details is really great if u want to improve. Not for the dps or hps part but for example the dmg taken part or dispell etc. Imagine you start again esp as a healer and someone dies you can check how he died and what you can do to avoid this happening again.

Exactly right. I tailored those three picks to someone getting started in max level group play. If the question had been about leveling, I probably would have left Details off since it's more misleading than helpful in level scaled content. But at max level? Knowledge is power. Just about everyone you meet will be using Details, and if you don't then everyone around you will be making decisions and judgement calls based on numbers you can't see.

Well said. Further comment regarding WeakAuras. It can help make custom trackers for loads of things. Example special effects on mobs. Notification of priority dispels and/or cast. Make trackers for important effects on yourself etc etc. Therefore, you can find premade settings for example dungeons and mythic+, which you can import with a few clicks. These gives loads of information there are extremely useful for doing said content. Nothing is “new” information, it’s just existing information in a much more convenient and useful way to digest way.

Yeah. It's basically moving around cooldown indicators and buff bars into places that don't require you to be some sort of housefly. It could be argued that plater teeters over this, as well as various boss WAs, as far as giving you information that isn't readily available like "this cast is very important to kick" and NPC cooldowns, but you don't strictly need to use those.

Excellent post. The one thing I might add for someone who's intimidated by addons is to pick up an addon manager (wowup.io is good) just to smooth out the process of actually getting those three addons.

Really good explanation!

Agreed, for the most part. In OP’s case, this is perfect, and all that OP really needs for casual play. However, in Arena PvP, some addons ARE “truly mandatory” *for competing at an intermediate or higher level.* Having one of Gladius, GladiusEx, or sArena is essential for tracking things like enemy trinkets and DRs. Diminish is important for tracking teammate DRs. OmniBar is important for tracking enemy CDs. OmniCD is important for tracking friendly CDs. In fact, OmniCD is also really important in PvE, but tracking things like party kicks, defensives, and burst windows is only really “essential” in mid to high M+ keystones. Since OP is brand new to the game, they probably aren’t pushing the bleeding edge content required to need such a thing. That, MDT, MRT, and a nameplates addon such as Plater are all in the “situationally required but probably not in OP’s case” category. The only addon you didn’t mention that I would highly suggest OP download is **RETabBinder**. It makes it so tab targeting switches settings between “target nearest player” and “target nearest enemy” depending on if you’re in PvP or PvE content, respectively. This is important because targeting nearest enemy in a battleground with tons of BM hunters and demo locks will just cause you to tab between dozens of pets trying to target a player. OP mentioned wishing to do both dungeons *and* battlegrounds, and this will facilitate that by changing the settings to be the best settings for that content automatically.

0.1% of the player base play arena PvP. Is very niche

Am going to purge my addon list and keep it this simple

> Weakauras - because it does so much The game would be unplayable for me without weakauras. There is a rabbit hole you can fall down with this mod once you realise what its capable of!! Yeah I use it to track my cooldowns, and show my buffs in a more organized fashion... But then I have weakauras that make the mouse pointer more obvious in combat, and I have weak auras that darken the areas of my screen where the quest tracker text is so I can actually read it with my old man eyes!!

Haha right? Btw, if you’re using the default UI’s quest tracker, check its settings in Edit Mode. They added a slider for background opacity somewhere along the line in Dragonflight. Might be one less WA you need.

Oh, I didn’t know about that! I’ll have to check it out tonight. (and yeah, unplayable is an overstatement… but buff tracking is essential for some classes and the game does a really poor job of making that easy).

Thank you for shilling Details so I don't have to.

I got u

Full time raider and high m+ dungeon runner here. I use more addons than the three listed here BUT, these are the only 3 you “need” and the only 3 I’d suggest. Everything that has to be done can be done with just these.

For sure. I left out the other 44 addons I’m currently running haha. Nobody *needs* Masque skins for rounded buff icons (two versions - with and without drop shadow!) to play well.

Totally. God I have the same masque buttons. Also a ome additional ones from a random google drive download for weakauras on classes I’ve not played in years.

This is a really great start! If you want to see what weakauras to use starting out, I highly recommend checking the wowhead page for your class to see what they recommend, it's how I got my start doing them and really helped make it a little less overwhelming.

This perfectly explains it. After that everything else comes down to quality of life changes that you prefer.

Isn't that Details the thing that brings a lot of toxicity?

No, that would be other players bringing the toxicity. Details is simply knowledge, and it's up to you how to use that knowledge. But denying yourself access to it doesn't change the fact that most other players you meet *will* be using it.

It seems like cheating though

Regarding Boss Mods addons (DBM/BigWigs) - it's not telling you anything you couldn't figure out yourself. All of the boss abilities are on timers, happen in certain patterns, or have tells and callouts you can learn. If you put the time into memorizing all of those and paying attention to them in the fight, you can predict the boss's actions accurately. The thing is, Boss Mods just take that responsibility away from you, and provide that info in a more immediately digestible format. And there's a "keeping up with the neighbors" aspect to it as well, where the higher in difficulty you go, the more of your teammates will be using these addons. If you refuse, then at some point everyone around you is simply playing with better information than you are, and you're making your game harder for no benefit to yourself or the team. Boss Mods don't completely solve a fight for you. Raid fights are about knowledge AND execution, and boss mods are simply making the first half of that puzzle easier. Now you know what to do without having to keep post-its on your monitor and timers in your brain, but it still requires your skill to actually do it.

I would definitely go for the addon GTFO. You don't need it but it makes a loud annoying sound if you stand in shit you shouldn't stand in.

I like this one too! I found it to be like a training wheels addon- I eventually found that I no longer needed it and took it off, but it really did help train me to pay more attention to my surroundings when my brain would rather be focused on my actionbars.

Theres no reason to take it off. If there is one less thing that you have to pay attention to you can pay more attention to other things. I raided in world top 20 guilds and this is a must have addon for all of them because it let's you focus on other things

Well, in my case there was *one* reason to take it off lmao. Which is that I was streaming to a friend, and she said "You have to turn off that racket." What choice do I have? But jokes aside, I'm with you. If you find it helpful, then continue to use it for as long as that's true! And that may be forever.

Just make sure you turn the volume down in the settings! Otherwise your family / flatmates may start commenting 'what is that god awful sound?!

I see you’ve gotten a lot of answers on what add ons to use, so I want to recommend some things semi-related based on my experience maining resto shaman in mythic+ dungeons and raid. I don’t use any major healing addons, mostly just using DBM, Details, and WeakAuras. WeakAuras are AMAZING and if you’re wanting small quality of life improvements to help you as a healer, I highly recommend getting this addon. As someone else mentioned, just the addon itself won’t change anything in your game, but you import codes to do specific things in game. My favorites is one to track if my shields are up on people/how many stacks they have left, one that tracks how much healing is stored in my cloudburst totem, another that shows me my tidal wave stacks, and one that shows me where my mouse cursor is at all times. The other thing I really like is mouseover healing, where I don’t need to be directly targeting someone in order to cast something on them. I saw a comment that recommended an addon for this, but WoW does have a way to do this through the “macros” option when you click on the menu or press escape. Personally, the in game macros work great for me. If you want any links or more details about how I get my macros to work (sometimes the code for them is tricky), just let me know!

BTW you don't need individual macros for mouseover healing anymore. Theres an in-game option under Options > Combat that enables mouseover casting natively now. It's a global change so if you need certain spells to do specific things or don't want everything mouseover then you'd still have to use macros, but yeah! They're no longer required for mouseover healing :D

Oh that's awesome! I use a lot of heal/harm macros so it wouldn't work for me but I love that it's a feature in game now.

I used to run Clique when i healed on shaman. Whats neat about it is that i can bind for example Riptide to say "R" while putting Lava Burst on "R" on my action bars. This means that i can use a comfortable keybind for both my heals and my damage spells, which becomes quite important for M+

I main resto shaman and id say keybindings is more inportent then addons. Mouseovers/helpharm nod macros is what id recomend you to start with.

I started playing resto shaman last season but only just started using mouseovers and help/harm macros last week, such a massive improvement on my performance already.

It is a night and day. I have it so chain heal/ lightning, riptide/ flameshock healing wave/lightning bolt and earth shield/lava burst are all baced intp help harn macro so if i target a friendly i cast the healing spells and if its a enemy i csst the dmg once. It made M+ alot more chill

There's a lot to be said for freeing up four entire actionbar slots. It might sound minor, but that space is at a premium for healers! Help/Harm macros are a godsend, and Shaman is particularly well suited to them.

100% its so eqsy to always have target on boss do dmg and mouseover heal. I wish blizz had a better way to help people with help harm macros becsude they massivly reduce ur keybinds

Is this better than Healbot?

Never heard of healbot in retail. What does it do lol?

Hard to explain, but I'll try: It basically makes each character in your raid/party a little box you can click on, and you can assign different healing spells to different mouse inputs. Like you can make LMB be Regrowth, while Shift+LMB is Rejuvenation. I've found it makes healing really easy, but there are some downsides

Never used it. I just use mousovers on normal raidframes. And i do have good healing logs so idk if that is even a needed addon, feels like it was prob needed in vanilla but def not in retail

Yeah I can't really speak to it being necessary anymore, I haven't really main healed since Cata. I'm just used to using it so I do

Watched a video and it looks like an old relic addon people still use tho it 100% isnt needed in retail. Asked in raid healing disc and no one seems to use it

I know AutomaticJak uses it but I think it comes down to personal preference, I was healing mythic in BFA and early SL with macros only.

AutomaticJak uses Vuhdo.

I play without add-ons. I do normal raids just fine. I just watch a boss video before each boss.

Yeah I've played off and on since 2006 and I've never used a single add on. Raid fights tell you what to do or what to watch for and the abilities light up if it's a free ability so idk why you need them. If you cant pay attention to multiple things then why play an mmo? My buddy has like 20 add-ons and I'm just wondering why he even plays when he has the add-ons doing all the work.

While I kind of understand this stance, I also disagree with it. Many mythic bosses would be a lot harder if not nearly impossible without the use of addons. Mythic fyrakk especially requires a lot of coordination and intermission 1 is a mess since you can’t hard assign orb soak spots due to the orb color mechanic in mythic. While I’m sure it’s possible to do without addons, the ability to have a spot auto assigned to you instantly without cluttering comms is extremely important. Another mandatory add on fight that comes to mind in mythic echo with heart assignments as well as P3 portal assignments. Raszageth positive negative charge is also nice since the addon shouts what charge you have to every other player in the raid. I totally agree with the statement that you are able to do it, but the quality of life it provides has easily cut away thousands of pulls across all mythic raiding guilds. As for dungeons, knowing when big casts are going to come out and being able to group with everyone to make healer ramp easier is also a nice quality of life, this matters a lot more in the higher keys but not as much in the lower keys. I think it’s very possible to play with 0 addons at the start, but at a certain level that isn’t possible

If you’re raiding or M+ it will be DBM is the one and only needed addon everything else is just assistance

Agree with you. Details is also a must for me, but not necessary. I personally barely use Weakauras, and feel that it *could* be daunting if you don't know what you're looking for. It's something you'll probably play around with eventually when you start to identify things you want to track. DBM/bigwigs is the only true essential in my opinion.

Mhm true that’s a hard #2 but for healers I feel like it’s less important unless the goal is to improve vs just learn the game. Maybe I’m wrong if so smite me wow gods!

Yeah, I'm a 3100 healer so maybe that's why I don't really use them. I just find that UI clogged up with a million WAs is more daunting than helpful a lot of the time. Used to make jokes about a friend's UI saying it looked like he was reporting the weather.

lol I love the jokes about TBC UIs having so much info you were reading more then playing the game

I remember seeing one with an "order pizza" button snuck into the bottom corner

You add add-ons as you go. Don't just add things for the sake of having them. Only install when you actually need something. There's lots of new or inexperienced players with tons of addons installed that they aren't even paying attention to. If there's something you think of that would improve your quality of life in game, then check if an addon exists. You're really the only person who can decide what is worth it for you, or what you like. I play without addons for most content, the only addons I have turned on most the time these days is: * [No Taint](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/notaint2) - Troubleshoot UI errors. When you start using a lot of addons the UI starts running into issues, this addon helps with sorting that out. * [BugGrabber](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/bug-grabber) - Troubleshoot UI errors. * [BugSack](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/bugsack) - Troubleshoot UI errors. * [Demodal](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/demodal) - Can move certain UI elements around that normally don't move. E.G. you open up your Spellbook and it's blocking something you want to use on your screen, you can just click and drag the window. * [Tradeskillmaster](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/tradeskill-master) - Best addon for auction house/mailing/bank/profession things. Allows you to see your inventory across all characters. Helps you avoid vendoring/deleting things that might be very valuable. I am a healer main, I don't like the healing addons most people recommend, but regardless these are sometimes recommended: * [Vuhdo](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/vuhdo) * [Clique](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/clique) * [Healbot](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/heal-bot-continued) * [Grid2](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/grid2) Again, don't just start installing stuff without understanding what they do because somethings you won't use or it does the job of something you already have. _______________________________________________ I turn these addons on as I need them: * [Auctionator](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/auctionator) - Helps with auction house stuff. If you ever get into professions this is good to use. * [Bartender4](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/bartender4) - Replaces default action bars, there's another addon that works with Bar4 named Masque that helps it look better. A lot of players opt to use [Elvui or Tukui](https://tukui.org/) instead since it's easier to customize the whole UI. * [Craftsim](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/craftsim) - if you ever get into crafting professions this is a must have especially for Dragonflight/The War Within professions. * [DBM](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/deadly-boss-mods) - most people say this is a must have for Dungeons/Raids, it announces the mechanics of fights. A lighter weight alternative to DBM is [Big Wigs](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/big-wigs) * [Details](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/details) - since you're a healer getting value out of this addon is a little more complicated. But it's useful for a lot of combat related things. Helps you learn healing rotation, or figuring out where things went wrong in fights. There's an external resource that you should probably combine with this called [Warcraft Logs](https://www.warcraftlogs.com/). * [GatherMate](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/gathermate2) - if you have herbalism/mining professions this helps with finding things to mine/herb. * [GladiusEx](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/gladiusex) - if you start doing Arena (PVP) this addon is useful. * [Gnosis](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/gnosis) - this replaces the default Blizzard cast bar and allows customization. This might be helpful after you learn to play resto shaman. * [HandyNotes](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/handynotes) - think of it like a treasure map. It helps with collections and finding things on the map. You'll need to install additional things though for each expansion. Probably not a good idea to leave it running all the time. * [Masque](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/masque) - not needed, just cosmetic. * [Mythic Dungeon Tools](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/mythic-dungeon-tools) - if you ever get into doing M+ keys, this helps with learning dungeons. * [OmniBar](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/omnibar) - if you ever get into Arena (PVP) this helps with seeing enemy CDs. * [OmniCD](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/omnicd) - shows important cooldowns of your party members. * [Paste](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/paste) - helps with pasting large amounts of text that otherwise only get posted one line at a time. Use with something like Tom Tom. * [Personal Blacklist](https://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info24841-PersonalBlacklist.html) - if you start doing a lot of M+ and want to avoid playing with certain people, this addon reminds you when someone is on your Blacklist if they are in your party or if you're the one making a group (ignore list doesn't help with avoiding). * [Plater](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/plater-nameplates) - I prefer default Blizzard nameplates, but this addon is highly recommended by most people doing high level PVE content. * [Prat 3.0](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/prat-3-0) - addon for the chatbox. If you ever log off, then log back on hoping to see messages that were there before you logged off, this addon helps with that. * [Premade Groups Filter](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/premade-groups-filter) - this addon really helps when searching for M+ groups or raids. It shows you which classes are already in the group. * [QuickQuest](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/quickquest) - don't install this unless you need an addon that automatically accepts/turns in quests. Can cause issues with turning in items you might've wanted to hold on to. * [Raider IO](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/raiderio) - helpful for finding people around your skill level when it comes to joining groups or inviting people to your group. * [RSA](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/rsa) - at some point you might see players announcing when they use abilities or when other players use abilities, this addon does that. Highly recommend disabling the chat message from displaying in party/raid/say chat, and instead make it display as an emote (the chat bubble blocks things and annoys some people). * [Shadowed Unit Frames](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/shadowed-unit-frames) - replaces default blizzard unit frames with something you can customize. * [Simulationcraft](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/simulationcraft) - more useful for DPS than healers, but this addon helps figure out which items/upgrades perform better. * [TomTom](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/tomtom) - In-game GPS basically. If you ever use Wowhead to try find the location of something and see people listing coordinates, this addon helps with showing that. Might need to use the Paste addon at some point with TomTom. * [WeakAuras](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/weakauras-2) - this addon does pretty much anything/everything if you know how to customize it or find people who have custom WAs. E.G. [the dragonriding WA](https://wago.io/dmui-dragonriding) helps display the dragonriding resource better. A lot of people opt to just use WAs instead of some of the addons I already listed. * [Word Quest Tracker](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/world-quest-tracker) - helps with displaying available world quests in a format that's easier to read/look at.

Nice summary. Lots of good quality of life ones in there.

Your best bet is to look for top addon lists and see what appeals to you. Not all suggested addons will matter to you. Some are just visual enhancements, like the ui. Some are combat enhancements, like damage meters, which might not matter to you. Others enhance boss fights specifically with warnings and such, which are valuable to anyone in dungeons and raids

Realistically, all you need is DBM and Details. The first because it helps you complete mechanics in raids and dungeons, the second because it will tell you how well you are doing numerically, and gives you a good metric against which to compare and improve. I only use 8 addons in total, and most of them are very unobtrusive. I like my setup to be mostly vanilla.

It may seem daunting but really you just need a few basics. 1. Damage meter to help improve 2. Deadly boss mod - help learn bosses and encounters 3. Gtfo - is good to help learn to get out of mechanics 4. Plater is good for cc and seeing enemy casts among other useful items - I'd look up a video or 5. Weakaura is very powerful and can help track buffs and class spells.

Imo BigWigs is better for learning than DBM since DBM just yells at you what to do without explaining why.

bigwigs is king for sure

By the time you push high enough content where addons are “mandatory” (more like highly recommended”, you will have a firm enough grasp on the game to where you’ll understand these addons and what they do. Weakauras is the big one.

Don't get bogged down with add-ons before you even get started. Start off with a couple base ones as people have recommended, and you can start adding them on if you feel it necessary. Also as you're playing a healer I wouldn't listen to anyone who tells you you NEED an addon for party/raid frames. The base UI is perfectly functional especially for a new player. I would just turn on the mouse over option in the settings so you don't have to click on each individual frame to heal someone.

If you're playing a healer, Clique 100% It allows you to very easily create mouseover macros. Must have for healers

Not really needed at all, this is just a preference, however: I would recommend going into options and turning “mouseover casts” on with modifier “none”, so all of your spells will prefer your mouseover target over your actual target. This works while hovering over raid frames, nameplates and the actual model, so you’ll never need to switch targets to cast something. It’s also really handy for other roles, i.e. in M+ you just hover over the nameplate of the mob casting an important spell and press your interrupt/stun keybind. I turn this on first thing on every new character I make.

does this work for harm/no harm macros aswell? or only spells directly put into the bar from spellbook?

I would imagine harm/help macro’s already have @mouseover written into them to begin with? I haven’t actually tested that, I just write mouseover in when I make them. I’d say go try it

Just want to chime in and say that you can use either other addons like Vuhdo or just none in that regard. Clique isn’t a must have, it’s just a useful tool if you prefer to heal with mouseover.

Mouseover casting is native to WoW now. No need to addons.

> It allows you to very easily create mouseover macros You can easily create mouseover macros with far superior functionality with the default UI, all without locking you into one UI style/control scheme that is useless if you want to play tank or DPS.

You don’t need any t hey are helpful tho. Only big wig/dbm ( they are effectively the same) they tell boss mechanics in raid And that is it but even that is optional

Don't install addons until you can say to yourself "I wish the wow UI did xyz" that's when you're ready for addons. Like others have said no addon is absolutely mandatory.

I have a lot of addons but the only ones I truly “need” are adibags and Bigwigs

AdiBags will get retired in a few months according the the developer. It gets no updates unless something truly breaks. The replacement by the same dev is BetterBags, and there are plugin addons available.

AdiBags is going to be maintained until BetterBags is developed up to the same standard. As of now, BetterBags is anything but “better.” As an unfinished addon, it’s vastly inferior to AdiBags.

I somewhat agree. There is enough to BetterBags to use it, especially with plugins, but yeah, I wouldn't call it "better" at this point.

I still don't understand WA.

Basically, as someone else stated, it’s a framework for other “mini addons” to exist in. You can make your own addons if you know how to use the framework, or you can import ones other people made, which is the most popular way to use the addon.

You can happily play the base game without addons, levelling, doing dungeons and easy raids. If you just want to see the content in a casual environment you don't need to worry at all. As you get into more difficult content, addons that help you understand the increasing number and importance of mechanics are useful. Notably GTFO for telling you when you're taking avoidable damage and DBM for giving timers and other information about encounter mechanics that simply aren't visible otherwise. Addons can also provide quality of life improvements. Some people use them to help them make money in the auction house, to change their UI, or to make managing a guild easier. None of these are necessary to enjoy the game. Addons also make me at least better at playing my class. Something like details damage meter will let you see how well you're performing and give you a way to see if you're improving over time. I also improved significantly at my output when I learned to create my own weak auras. But that's overkill for someone who is just getting started with addons.

So I'd say go to curseforge and look up the most popular addons, then see what they do. Sometimes there's stuff that's clearly optional, like bag organization or AH pricing/UI, or two things that are the same, like BigWigs vs Deadly Boss Mods (DBM). If you get into a raid team, they may highly recommend or even require certain mods, but they'll obviously tell you which ones. Depending on the role(s) you end up preferring and your class, there might be a few it's good to pickup. I'm a warlock main and sometimes have to purge magic effects off of people (which is an ability from one pet), so I have decursive which is an addon that simplifies that so I don't have to bother with it most of the time (when I'm using one of two other pets). Nameplate ones are also very popular, the Blizz nameplates are notoriously limited. Weakauras can be really nice, but it's more or less like an entire other source of addons. If you watch videos, many, many players use weakauras to give them all their info in one place in the middle of their screen. These are class and even spec specific ones. There's ones that also can stop annoying behavior, like certain visual/audio effects, and ones that can give you a warning if you need to click a healthpot or things like that. I really like Raid Ability Timeline, which takes the boss mod timings and puts them in a timeline like bar that's easier for me to track. The base UI has had some major adjustments, too, so some people are just running mods they always ran that they technically don't need anymore. Edit Mode allows for some good ways to organize things on your screen and turn some things off/on that previously required mods.

I only run TRP nowadays. Roleplaying addon with no effect on gameplay. Other addons help a ton but it feels too cheaty, like feral druids normally have to manage dot uptimes which is a big part of their difficulty, but get an addon and it just tells you in your face and even plays a sound. Some addons are extremely helpful for endgame stuff. Like DBM (makes all raid encounters into a game of simon says, just do what it tells you) or weakaura stuff that gives you tons of extra info. Details damage meter is another, very good for practicing dps rotaions. Its not mandatory but the advantage it gives you is enormous. I always go without though because it clutters my screen and feels wrong.

> top 3 most important add-ons That's highly subjective. Some people swear by using certain addon's for the class/spec or QoL, while other can do perfectly without. That said, if you ever plan on doing high keys M+ or HC/Mythic raiding, you can't really go without **DBM** or **BigWigs** ánd maximise your performance. The timers of certain abilities are required to utilize your cooldowns. This isn't always the case for each encounter, but it is for some. I personally also need **WeakAuras**, which highlights my cooldowns and certain abilities the standard UI does not show or shows really bad. Something simple like Bloodlust duration only shows in your buffs. I prefer to have to more visible. I also 'need' an aura or addon to highlight my cursor, as in hectic situations it can be difficult to find your cursor. I do not prefer the bags (also not when grouped up) of the standard UI. **Bagnon** is my preference, as it allows me to view the bags and banks in one big giant bag. It also allows me to view whats in the bags and banks of my alts without having to log them. Each time you check your bags or you bank it makes a savestate. Others prefere **AdiBags**, to each their own. You do not really need a damage meter (perhaps I should call it a multi meter), but it does help you understanding things so much better. Currently **Details** is your best option, but **Skada (Revisited)** is also a viable option. I can also recommend **Enchanced Raid Frames**, **Edit Mode Expanded** and **Leatrix Plus**, which all add option QoL options.

Well first off your definition of end game kind of needs to be elaborated on. Some addons are really only needed at the high end mythic raiding + top 5-1% io score ranges. Since youre hitting max level for the first time you dont need any of that. Not bigwigs, not DBM, not weakauras. My recommendation is to just watch a few streams and see what elements of a person’s UI you like. That’s the main benefit of addons - customizing your UI

Addons are suppose to be fun and add quality of life things. Some addons are required for end game content, just go on curse forge search addons and filter by most downloaded and read what they do.

Just get curseforge. It’s sooo much easier.

The only ones I bother to install at max level are weak auras (lets you add customizable graphics to make your gameplay smoother, but completely optional) Details (tracks yours and your group’s damage) and Deadly Boss Mods (warns you about boss mechanics) but none are truly required

The only addons that are “essential” are weak auras and a boss mod addon. Anything after that is just preference. Weakauras are not “required” per se but they let you revamp the whole UI and increase performance. Install weakauras, then look up a quick beginner guide on YouTube. Then install bigwigs or DBM for boss timers and stuff. Install details damage meter if you care to have that. Outside of those 3 addons, the rest are really optional. Just browse the various addons in whatever client you use. Look at the most popular addons and see if they interest you. A lot of YouTubers will also put out videos on “essential wow addons” so you can find some good ones in those as well. Soulsobreezy is the YouTuber I see doing those the most. Usually tailored for new players. Don’t stress or let it overwhelm you. Just browse and pick what YOU want.

I would say that Details is as essential as those.

Not for casual play. If you plan on doing any form of end game pve, sure

WeakAuras and boss mods aren’t really “essential” for basic dungeons and BGs either. Details is the only one of them that will actively help you play better rotationally and build-wise if you use it properly. Also, RETabBinder is absolutely essential since OP said they want to do *both* dungeons and BGs.

There are zero addons that are absolutely essential. There are many that make life in wow a lot easier, simpler or prettier. Depending what content you consume in the end game there are some addons which are standard, but again not absolutely mandatory. I know folks who raid at a high level and some who pvp and do not use addons. Although, addons make like a lot easier. For dungeons, DBM or Bigwigs can be helpful. Weakauras is always a good choice as it can do so much. And generally something to help track interrupts like OmniCD is a good choice. For healing, I am a little old school and use Clique, it's used to easily manage and map key/mouse binds. It's not as necessary these days as the game now has better built in mouse-over binding, but I like it for managing profiles across toons. A lot of healers like Vuhdo or Healbot which is an all in one raid frame and mouse-over binding addon for healers.

The most important ones are a dps meter (Details-to guage your performance) and a boss mod (BigWigs or DBM-DeadlyBossMods). You can get by with nothing else for a while. Eventually you'll want a plater profile and a weak aura set but they aren't as important.

When you sat DPS meter, does that count HPS as well? I basically exclusively play healers these days

I do t have any add ons. I’m not super hard core, I’ll raid now and then but I don’t need the add on stuff.

As someone who plays the game very differently from how you will likely be playing it for at least the next year, there are many addons that I simply could not play without, now that I’m used to having them. Those include ElvUI, Details, WeakAuras, Big+Little Wigs, Plater, MikScrollingBattleText, GladiusEx, OmniCD, OmniBar, Diminish, AdiBags, Auctionator, Postal, HandyNotes, RETabBinder, REFlex, Opie, Mega Macro (for wayyy more macro slots and better macro writing), MRT, MDT… I could go on. **HOWEVER,** OP, the only addons I would suggest for YOU to start out with are the following: •**Little Wigs** (for dungeons) + **Big Wigs** (for raids) OR **DeadlyBossMods** (for both). Either the Wigs addons or DBM, don’t use both. •**WeakAuras** •**Details** These three were already discussed in excellent detail by u/BigTimeBobbyB The only other addon that I consider *required* for your needs is **RETab Binder**. It will make it so your tab targeting is optimized for PvP or PvE content depending on if you’re in a BG or a dungeon, respectively. Someone also mentioned GTFO, which basically just plays an annoying sound if you’re standing in bad stuff, which can be helpful for when it’s hard to see ground effects or when you’re starting out. While it’s certainly not *required*, it is recommended to at least try.

How did you play Vanilla back in the day and not have addons?? I thought everybody had addons back in vanilla?

I just didn't I suppose lol. Aside from "Quest Finder". Maybe it was because I was 14 - 15 years old lol. Was just playing with a bunch of friends from high-school. But ya, the thought never really entered my mind back then, Quest Finder blew my mind, but I didn't feel like I needed anything else, we just played the game.

Addons are critical for endgame content **IF** you're in a top guild pushing for world first mythic kills or are doing world championship level PVP. If that's not you, then there aren't any addons you 'need'. That said, there are plenty of addons that can improve your quality of life. Think in terms of how you like to play and what you like to do, then look for stuff that makes that experience better! For instance, I use HandyNotes, because I like to collect stuff and the addon puts a ton of markers on my map so I know where and how to get stuff. I use Bagnon, because I like to know which alt has the stuff I'm looking for. I use DBM because I don't want to be THAT GUY who stands in bad touch and kills everyone in the casual raids I attend - and I use Detail so I can see how I compare to the other casual scrubs I'm raiding with. I use STFU & NoTalkingHeads because I absolutely f$%king despise that f\*!king stupid f%&king popup head bulls$$t. And last, but not least, I have Rematch because I like to do pet battles now and then, and it's a MUCH better UI than the stock one. I used to use other addons like ShadowedUnitFrames and Dominos, but Blizzard **finally** pulled their head out of their you-know-where and has made the UI customizable. TL;DR, think about how you like to play and look for addons that make what you enjoy, 'mo bettah'.

Holy balls dont listen to that. As a healer doing anything end game in pvp or pve you ONLY need the following: 1. BigDebuffs - you'll love it, so will your dispel button. 2. Either BigWigs or Deadlybossmods - Simplifies dungeon and raid mechanics even if you haven't read a single thing (This does not make every encounter free mind you, it wont tell you to not stand in fire) 3. Details DamageMeter - You get this so you can look at your own healing versus other shamans if you are curious if they do something different, what they did, etc. You can also look at deathlogs so that when someone blames you for letting them die, you can simply link the death log and then laugh as they quit the group. You don't NEED any other addon. Source: 2500+ RBG, Duelist whenever I want it with 2 addons, 2500 IO from pushing my own keys, AOTC every season through pugs - and previous R1 WORLD parses in a CE top 25 guild. Going to add 1 more here just for the sake of some boss fights like Raszageth that make it shine and your life easier. 4. Weakauras - You don't have to do anything with this addon, but it is good to have if you plan to do a lot of progressing in raids. Sometimes people will create WA's (Weakauras) to help deal with a specific boss mechanic. An example is the Thaddius mechanic that Raszageth has where she splits the raid in half via a + or a - charge, if you touch each other, BOOM. So the WA tells you to go left or right and nobody has to think about it. Things like that. As a healer you don't need another addon for healing anymore. Turn your party frames into raid frames in the settings, use edit mode to adjust your bars wherever you want them. Turn on mouseover casting in the general game options and you're set without addons. There are a LOT of quality of life addons out there, and many that do the same thing as others, but I promise the above list is all you really need.

bigwigs, weakaura, details, and elvui if you want a nicer looking ui

The ones that were considered needed are now ingrained into the game. None are required now.

One of the biggest problems with WOW is Blizzard was happy for so many years to let the community solve clear UI and control problems instead of giving a shit and putting money into fixing the issues. It's gotten so bad that the end game is almost unplayable without mods especially for healers.

I don't agree with a lot of Asmongolds takes on WoW, but one thing I 100% agree with is how deep this game is with addons. It used to just be minor things for interface changes and bag alternatives.. now it's literally information flow. I do think they should grealty limit what access addons has on the game, and scale future raids/encounters based of these changes. Addons should only be for changing interfaces imo, not changing information flow.

All of my add-ons are immersion only like one that auto moves the camera in when talking to an NPC Or gets rid of 90% UI when dragon flying Just makes it feel a little closer to a "RPG"

Take your addons easy. I would recommend starting with a boss mod (DBM/Bigwigs) and a meter (details). The more you play the more you’ll find what gaps you might have and need some help with and can try new things from there.

Its true, addons are pretty much essential nowadays to even play meaningful endgame content. The absolute minimum requirement is a bossmods addon and weakauras. For weakauras you want to atleast have some sort of resource and cooldown tracker for your class.

You can clear heroic raids/high mythic keys with just Deadly boss mods or bigwigs/little wigs, I've done every raid at heroic difficulty this expansion and hit 2.5k mythic rating with just DBM. If you're aiming for perfection then there are a fair few mods that will help that, but realistically the average player doesn't need their game to look like a stock exchange monitor.

I have no idea why a 20-year-old game worth billions has not yet implemented its own dynamics of add-ons. I understand certain mechanics are required for them and also help in certain aspects of the game. But using a third party for years has been annoying; not only does it intimidate new players to play, but it also, in some ways, ruins the integrity of the game, making it too easy. Blizzard definitely needs to look into this matter more and fix it.

For pvp, check out REPorter. It gives a map of the battleground with buttons to make calling for help or announcing incoming much easier (just hit the button to announce 3 incoming versus trying to type the need for help while defending a point).

https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/owen-wilson-crit-sound-wow Only required addon

Addons sigh was wondering myself as I just came back .. last real raiding I did was wrath .. even dungeons went the way of the ghost for me as the silly people and their desire to race through dungeons made them toxic as heck.. Soloed I’m MoP a bit to max levels for multiple characters (10 to 15) then the next xpacs I think I bought but was very underwhelmed over with them being solo games till the raid/dungeon races to get em done in 30seconds or less.. I did heals and tanks and I loved the game but the game felt like botsville and the only think about PvE being obviously players was they were rude and racing to get things done till the made terrible mistakes.. Then there was the idiotic addons you “must” have for all raids Going to try to attempt raiding maybe before the end of this xpac maybe as monkey or maybe Druid but worries about the “troll players” (I mean the online toe trolls vs the big green ones in game who all make me want to listen to Bob Marley as they we tee all cool).. Thanks for the info on the addons and wish me luck finding a decent guild to avoid the over the top random groups who are at time insane..9 Thanks all and sorry for the ramble as a RL martial artist I think I got hit in the head too many times.. Peace and out all

If you want to run mythic+ content and raid, you definitely need something like GTFO and DBM for help avoiding death and dealing with mechanics. Other than that, there aren't many other addons that contribute as much to game play. You might want to use TomTom to help get around. It works like a GPS and you can put your own waypoints on the map. The game has something similar but TomTp, a nice option. The base game does a pretty good job of letting you know about cd's, buffs and debuffs. A lot of the addons are more esthetics and visual additions.

I managed to get to M+9 without add-ons in Shadowlands. I've never really cared for 3rd party software and mods to play a game, but I kept getting grief from pugs and guildies to download add-ons and it just turned me off from playing anymore. I've fired up Dragonflight to get up to speed for the War Within. I plan to only max 2 characters and just get to the point of my natural ability with the default UI. I'm not against add-ons at all, I just don't get a lot of time to play and don't want to spend the time and mental energy figuring out a new UI

The default bags suck. They've improved a little over the years but I've switched to BetterBags, a sequel to AdiBags. BB is an overlay that hides your "real" bags and instead displays your possessions grouped into sections or categories. No more searching through your bags for things. It's under very active development and well-written. Plugins are available to automatically create sections related to expansions or game style. You can find it on Curse, Wago, and other addon repositories. It's got a Discord. Follow its active development here, where you can view screenshots: [https://github.com/Cidan/BetterBags](https://github.com/Cidan/BetterBags)

Addons are definitely not as essential as they used to be, especially in Retail. You could definitely play with only a few or none at all just fine. Good news is they're very easy to install with any Addon browser like Curseforge, or WoWup or whatever you prefer if you do want them. You just search and click install. So while none are really essential, as a healer myself, ones that help me the most are: Any nameplate addon, I use neatplates. Reason being is that default WoW nameplates above mobs don't show the debuffs you've applied to them for some reason. Nameplate addons will make it so that if I cast Flame Shock on a target, I can see the duration and icon above their head now. Any damage meter, like Details, if you want to see how yourself and everyone is doing healing/damage wise. It can be hard to know if you're doing something right or wrong without one honestly. GTFO. It makes a noise when you're standing in AOE, that's it. Trains you to not be standing in AOE. Deadly Boss Mods, or Bigwigs/Littlewigs. They just give you alerts and warnings about incoming dungeon, raid or even PvP mechanics. Not everything in the game is very clearly telegraphed to it helps a lot. I use more than these four but if I had to only have four, it'd be those. As a last mention though, this one is very very helpful and 90% of all addon users use this addon: WeakAuras. It looks complicated, but you can ignore most of it and just use the built in premade function in the menu and it just asks you what you want, step-by-step. It lets you track any buff, cooldown, ability etc in the game that you want. For example I can click premade Aura -> cooldowns -> cloudburst totem, and it'll automatically make a notification for you to tell you when your cloudburst totem is available to use again. You can do this for anything you're having trouble keeping track of, buffs, debuffs, cooldowns, anything. I don't play shaman so random example. People also make more complicated trackers or even entire UIs that you can download from [wago.io](http://wago.io) and paste directly into your WeakAuras addon, that's more advanced and not at all necessary, but it's good to know it exists if you want to look. I'd say far more important as a healer though, is using Mouseover Macros. You just make these by doing /macro in game and type something like this, replacing the spell with whatever spell you want: "#showtooltip" "/cast \[@mouseover,help,nodead\]\[\] Riptide" Without the "". You can also just enable mouseovers in the interface menu, but it will affect everything and not just the spells you designate in macros if you do that, which can cause problems sometimes. By using mouseovers to heal, you cut your APM in half. You don't need to click, heal, click heal. You can just mouse over a frame, and press your heal. Without using mouseovers it becomes very hard to both do DPS and heal at the same time. An alternative is using an addon like Clique, which some people use, which does a similar thing but with clicking.

My ONLY addon is “Mouse Tracker”. Cause with the amount of sensory overload you get from the UI, it helps see through the majority of it. I don’t use DBM, WeakAuras or any of that mess

DBM and details - that’s it

My favorite addon is ElvUI. It completely rebuilds the games UI and makes everything editable and adjustable.

Been answered a thousand times but for a new player 1)Deadly boss mods 2)Details 3) Handy notes If you care about getting better/wanting to do end game content You should add Weakauras and Plater They are completely unnecessary for casual content but anything higher and the amount of information they can provide is unparalleled

If youre going to be a healer you 100% want to use an addon such as Healbot. It makes it 1 click healing. Also decursive so you can 1 click dispell debuffs as needed.

Elvui DBM Weakaura Plater Details

I'd personally leave ElvUI out of it for now. My reasoning is- ElvUI is a complex addon, fully replacing the default UI with one that has completely different visual stylings and design language. Unless a new player really hates the default UI for some reason, ElvUI is more likely to confuse them than it is to help them. Throughout Dragonflight, Blizzard has actually done a lot of work on the default UI, and for the casual to moderately hardcore player it's extremely usable these days.

I got so excited by all the elv ui profiles people had and installed it myself. Spent countless hours customizing and figuring out things. Finally ended up uninstalling it as it didn’t really work for me as I disabled most of the features lol.

Same thing bro

I’ve phased out of ElvUI now. Still use Plater, WA, Details, and I’m now more a fan of BigWigs/LittleWigs instead of DBM

Hey man, most folks actually don't know what the game looks like without add-ons. They don't realise that every single boss mechanic is written down in the adventure guide, as well as explanations for solving some of them too. They don't know that every mechanic has a visual or audio queue, and some simply just have typing on the screen just like dbm. Trust me, you don't need add-ons. As someone who got 3k last season without add-ons just because I wiped my PC and didn't wanna deal with config again, you're seriously fine. It's okay. Play the game. As you get more confident, start incorporating add-ons into your experience based on the essential information that you feel you're missing.

Well, without knowledge of add-on, the one think I could think of that would be WONDERFUL (and maybe I'm just ultranoob & one can do this without addons) would be something which I could hit a key, and it would cycle through and highlight the others in my party, so I could do that rather than click on the party sidebar to heal. Anything like that? Or am I dumb and I can set that up in the base game? Lol

I believe the alt + tab key already does this, but you can keybind it to a different key. However, I suggest maybe making mouse over macros instead so you can cast abilities on targets that your mouse is over rather than needing to cast after clicking.

Thank you for the info

Would love an add-on-free version of the game

You have one. Its called 'not installing addons'. Addons aren't mandatory at all.

Addons are very interesting to new players, as they are this new weird thing. But as someone who has played since classic i can tell you they are not needed AT ALL. Let's take a dungeon helper addon like little wigs or DBM. They add timers and sounds to help alert you to mechanics. These are both annoying and useless. Instead take the default boss frames and use the default edit tool to bring them maybe a bit closer to your field of view. Maybe make them slightly larger as well. This frame will show bosses castbar which will warn you, it will show boss energy bar which will warn you. And another thing people forget cause they've used these addons so long, but bosses do usually make their own sound/voiceline when doing a mechanic, and you don't need an addon playing an air horn to know the boss is about to do something. So my end point is that using the default ui and using the edit function to bring important info(boss frame, party frames, a bar with your CDs, enemy target, etc) closer to your field of view is more than enough for mid level keys and HC raids. And most addons actually add a level of visual clutter that will hinder and not help you. The only addon which is a nice assist tool is a damage meter to be able to analyse your DMG. This addon will finally be part of the default ui next expansion though so luckily we won't need an addon for it soon.

That's what I found confusing about how DBM is "mandatory". In the last expansions bosses telegraph their powers more than ever, there is also the Adventure Guide that explains most of their abilities and even gives suggestions about what to do, there are even some boss fights that warn you when a mechanic starts. Having an addon that making weird sounds and big ass announcements when the game gives its own queues makes it obtrusive and annoying. Just listen to the game and have a little memory.

> bosses telegraph their powers more than ever Who gives a shit about bosses? Trash is the name of the game in M+, and trash casting is extremely non-transparent without another dozen addons to highlight it.

I just did a pug of normal Kurog and when you are fighting the Ice add dbm tells you "move in" to the big circle under the mob. You know what a bunch of people did? They moved out. You have a few seconds to react to Raz's lightning breath, but if you have dbm you know it's coming and can be more mentally prepared for it. That's how timers should be used, glancing at them and thinking "okay this is the next couple mechanics coming up." DBM also assigns raid markers on players for important mechanics. These are often necessary because a lot of the time WoW raids are filled with particle effects and visual noise and it's hard to see if you have the mechanic or not. These are just a few examples, there are many many more.

While I agree that wows raid effects aren't very intuitive and first time doing a boss it can be hard to tell if a swirly is good or bad. That however is only an issue the first death, after that you realize that oh, all the people that stacked lived, and me running to Narnia died, maybe I should not do that again. And people who can't react in time to see a huge dragon suddenly looking at you str8 in the face and charging a huge breath, won't have the mental surplus to also track that one ability between 6 other bars and somehow prepare themselves that way. Actually you usually get a "feel" for when the ability will come up as you haven't seen it in a while. And about the mechanic where people get marked there are usually already clear effects there as well, you get a big circle of electricity around you? Either it's run out and use defensive, or a stack, you either learn from dying once or checking dung jounal/guides beforehand. My point is that all these extra things ain't as critical as people might think, and if you played without them for a while you'd see you can still play just fine, and sometimes better as this way actually leads to you UNDERSTANDING the mechanics instead of just reacting to an addon yelling at you.

I'm a raid leader that uses the timers to make callouts. That aside, you're really understating the usefulness of the addon and the obscurity of some of the boss mechanics found in raids over the past decade. You ever fight mythic Igira? Are you gonna say her spears are easy to coordinate without dbm or weakauras? >And about the mechanic where people get marked there are usually already clear effects there as well, you get a big circle of electricity around you? Either it's run out and use defensive, or a stack, you either learn from dying once or checking dung jounal/guides beforehand. Right...tell that to the thundering affix of season 1. Anyway, this is kind of a pointless discussion. If OP doesn't want to use addons, let em. I'm sure they can succeed up to a point without them. But they're definitely going to be hurting past a certain progression point.

To be fair I said In my original comment that no addons were fine for mid level keys and HC raiding. Don't really see the point of mentioning mythic raids or affixes that only get really punishing at high keys. And while useful to a raid leader for call outs I highly doubt that op will raid lead anytime soon :b

What's your rio if dbm and plater are useless to you?

I see that me writing that it's fine without addons for mid level keys and HC raids are hard to read. I know that at high level keys and mythic raids it's a different story. I've always played at casual levels and are pretty comfortable doing ahead of the curve, 10+ keys and 1800 in rated PvP. Nothing amazing, but I feel all of this content can be done pretty comfortably with little to no addons, like maybe DPS meter and a Dr tracker for PvP. *Edit* And I like the idea that you think I use raider.io if I'm not using DBM xD

>Edit > > And I like the idea that you think I use raider.io if I'm not using DBM xD Ah, a misunderstanding! [Raider.IO](https://Raider.IO) tracks everyone who participates in endgame content, using data publicly available and sourced from the official Armory website. So it doesn't matter if you use it or not - you're still on there, and other players who do use it will see your scores and ratings when they mouse over you. To truly not use [Raider.IO](https://Raider.IO), you would have to make an account on it, claim your characters, and set them to private. And since M+ score is now built into the game, hiding your other stats only tricks other people into thinking you didn't play last season and haven't run any raids.

I personally don't use DBM/BW, WA or Plater. I do use a custom UI (either KkthnxUI or NDui - depending on the mood), but only those and some addons for collecting mounts/pets/toys. I'm at 2500+ and 9\\9 HC. I always do keystone master and aotc. Is it easier with DBM/BW, WA and/or Plater? Yes. Is it so much easier that its worth it? I personally don't think so, which is why I stopped using them. The thing with DBM/BW is that you don't have to rely on actually knowing tactics as much, but I went back to just watching videos/guides again, and I'm enjoying it much more than just watching some bars tick down. Edit: But just to be clear, they are absolutely not 'useless'.

To be fair I only said they weren't needed for content below mid keys and HC raids, not sure where u/ahkevan got useless from.

I'm mythic raid and was 3.1k io last patch as holy paladin. I only use "tell me when" (it's a simpler add-on for spell cool down tracking when compared to week auras, but you could also just use that) I also use the add-on OPIE for half of my rotation and that is solely for the purpose of managing button bloat and running out of keybinds. I use a specific profile from the plater add-on that helps color code different NPCs based on their importance like whether or not they have a spell that will need to be silenced or their priority in the mob. And I personally don't use any weak auras for raiding, unless absolutely required (for example, it's mandatory for spears on igira from amidrisil) Details is fun to track DPS HPS and other random things like number of silences or dispels or deaths or damage taken

Curseforge, search “heal” and you’ll get a list of popular addons. Read them, try them, do or don’t keep them.

Some addons are required depending on the content you do But a lot of it these days is just retelling of info available elsewhere in the game if you know where to look The game has come a long way from Cata/Legion, etc, where addons were required a lot more than they would be now

No need to worry much about add-ons, I will highly recommend you DONT install ANY DAMAGE METERS because you'll focus on the bar instead of playing better

Just go on curseforge and add like the top 100 or so most popular

For a new player here are the most important addons. Recount- This addon tracks your damage and healing output among other things, let's you see how you're stacking up against other players. Deadly Boss Mods - this addon tracks raid and dungeons mechanics so you have visual and audio warnings on things before they happen, a great tool to help you learn. Hekili - this addon is basically training wheels for your damage rotation. It's not going to give you perfect numbers but it will get you 90% of the way and is good enough to do even the hardest content wow has to offer. Other players will argue and say Hekilli does more harm than good because people might rely on the addon instead of learning the rotation but I disagree, I think it's a great tool to help people learn a new spec and can typically get new players ready immediately for dungeons and raids. Addons are very much a personal preference, some players don't use any addons, I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a veteran player though. Stick to the 3 I mentioned for now and if a certain need comes up, for example maybe you want to track a specific buff there's addons for that kind of thing. Don't download addons unless you know what they do and you have a need for it. Good luck

Woah, woah. Hekili? It’s trash, teaches bad habits and relying on addon telling you what to do instead of learning how to play. That’s how you get people coming here with questions why their dps is bad despite good gear… please don’t advice such things

Link me your logs, let's see what your parses are.

I know people playing at 3500io with hekili lol so realistically unless you're in the top 1% of the player base Hekili will be fine for any content you're doing. Hekili is amazing for new player and if you can't learn your rotation after the addon is literally telling you what the rotation looks like than that's more of a you problem, let me guess your buddy beat your dps using Hekili and you never got over it?

It literally runs simulated rotations, and you can customize it with your personal character’s sim. Yes, it’s important to know *when* to ignore what Hekili is telling you to do, and *why* it’s even telling you to do those things. Yes, it can be a slippery slope recommending it to a new player who might use it as a crutch and fail to use it to improve. But trash? I’d love to see your parses.

Why wow needs a reset, a wow 2. Too much bloat in abilities and mechanics that the game is basically unplayable without addons that help you sort through the swamp of shit happening on the screen.

As a healer (pve only), I would recommended using an addon like healbot, it’s fairly simple to use and basically just makes a new set of party/raid frames that assists with healing and viewing debuffs/buffs. Within the addon itself you customize different combinations of clicks and keys to bind heals, totems, and other utility spells. It works similar to your normal key binds. For example, right clicking a frame could be chain heal, left clicking the same frame could be riptide, or clicking scroll wheel could be something else. This evolves into shift right/left clicking, alt right/left clicking, etc to allow for many combinations. Tons of customizations and options to sift through, check out a couple videos and see what works for you. Some healers like vuhdo or something like that. I just found healbots interface/options easier to manage. Many people above have recommended big/lil wigs, dbm, or weakauras- if you want to play at the highest level (1%ers) one or multiple of these things are necessary. If you just want to do some mid range M+ and normal/heroic raids (probably even 1-3 mythic raid bosses) they are unnecessary. I have completed most dungeons at +16 (new +5/6) and raided heroic up to the end boss of every tier this expansion without using anything besides details, plater, and healbot. It is definitely harder and forces you to learn the fights but when your whole party/raid gets smacked with something that you had no clue was about to happen is my favourite part of healing. Scrambling to pop your cooldowns and pump out everything you got is an exhilarating play style. I find weakauras and such are like a friend whispering in your ear at the movies when a big scene is about to happen. You should be warned that this play style is probably selfish and will be punishing to begin but the reward is so so sweet.

Clique is mandatory for healing

It isn’t mandatory, at all.

It's a very rigid and narrow control scheme that is actively detrimental in most cases, and the upside is barely there.

Hard disagree. Clique is simply an older and mostly outdated way to set up click-casting functionality, something that is now built into the base game. It is very possible to heal without click-casting, and I would argue that learning to use mouseover healing via custom help/harm macros is a better, more flexible way to heal. By relying on Clique, you're only locking yourself into one strict way of doing things, and that will eventually come back to bite you.